The U.S. Army is applying advanced simulation technologies,
communications architectures and real-time data-sharing processes to be
able to test multiple weapon systems from different locations,
simultaneously.

To make that possible, the Army's Developmental Test Command
is focusing on "virtual proving-ground" technologies, which
rely on modeling and simulation to create realistic testing
environments. In a briefing to military testers and evaluators last
year, DTC's technical director and deputy commander, Brian Simmons,
said the virtual proving-ground is DTC's "highest-priority
investment."

He said that modeling and simulation can cut costs by helping test
directors prepare to receive the data from expensive, destructive tests
at sites such as the White Sands Missile Range, where a live missile
test can cost $1 million per day. Simmons said of the virtual
proving-ground, "All of this is anchored in real testing and is a
tool, not a replacement for physical testing."

The virtual proving ground is a composite of facilities and
technologies throughout the DTC that enhance test programs with the aid
of computer modeling and realistic simulations.

To meet growing needs for interoperability testing, the U.S.
Army's Developmental Test Command is shifting its focus from the
testing of separate platforms--such as ranks, trucks or aircraft--to
testing how systems work together within a network, said Rick Cozby,
chief of DTC's Technology Management Division.

"Throughout the Cold War period, as well as during World War I
and World War II, the Army was essentially platform-centric," Cozby
explained. "Our battlefield tactics and doctrine dictated a heavy
force, and the cornerstone of the heavy force is the Abrams M1 tank.
Along with that are the mechanized infantry, light infantry and airborne
infantry. So we organized ourselves for testing around these platforms
but that is all changing.

"It started changing in Desert Storm, when the prospect of
maneuver became the dominant battlefield force. Dominant maneuver is the
chess-like maneuver that causes the threat to capitulate, because. we
surprised him, enveloped him and rendered him incapable of executing his
mission, even though his forces may be numerically superior. We did that
successfully in Desert Storm and learned a lot from it. We learned that,
in order to have dominant maneuver, you must have information
superiority."

To help the Army test complex systems, such as command, control,
communications, computer and intelligence equipment (C4I) as well as
weapons and other components--a virtual proving ground is being used to
"distribute" testing, Cozby said.

Distributed, network-centric testing makes it easier for Army
evaluators to determine the overall effectiveness of new systems,
because it more closely replicates how these systems would have to
operate together in the real world, Cozby added.

"Historically, we've been organized to test certain
aspects of a major system at specific test centers. So if you were
testing an M1 Abrams tank, for example, you tested it at Aberdeen Test
Center [in Maryland] for mobility, reliability, durability and
survivability. If you wanted to test it in an electromagnetic
environment, you had to take it to Fort Huachuca [in Arizona], and if
you wanted to test it in a chemical/biological environment, you took it
to Dugway Proving Ground [in Utah].

If you wanted to test its interface with tactical missile systems,
you took the item to Redstone Technical Test Center [in Alabama], and
for a desert environment you had to take it to Yuma Proving Ground [in
Arizona]."

According to Cozby, "By necessity, that was done over
different days at different times of year by different people using
different procedures and types of instrumentation. So the outputs are
different--yet the evaluator at the end of it all has to assimilate and
synthesize the test results into an evaluation of what would have
happened if the platform had been exposed to all those environments at
once, which is typically what happens in a battlefield scenario. It is a
very difficult job for the evaluator."

Cozby said DTC's test centers are striving to integrate their
virtual test capabilities into a single virtual proving ground, making
it possible to bring these diverse modeling and simulation capabilities
to bear on a system under test, as needed.

"We're building a common architecture, so that we can
talk the same language and share the same formats, protocols, processes
and procedures," he explained. "Beyond that, we are working
toward integrated information systems. You don't necessarily have
to have the same database technology, structure and data-collection
capabilities, but you must have an agreement on the interfaces between
those things. That is what the virtual proving ground is building now.
We call it an integration-level hierarchy. We design our instrumentation
and database structures to accommodate it."

DTC is working to develop "profiles" that can be used to
replicate effects that occur when items are tested in various
environments and then, with the aid of modeling and simulation, apply
those types of test stimuli to tests that would otherwise require more
time, manpower and funding. Cozby cited the bridge-crossing simulator at
DTC's Aberdeen Test Center as an example.

"We put accelerometers and other sensors on a bridge, run a
series of tests so you can characterize the impact of a tank on the
bridge, and then replicate those impacts with hydraulic actuators,"
Cozby explained. "We can press a button, and the actuators vibrate
the bridge with the same profile that a tank vibrates the bridge.

"We can do it 24 hours a day, and we don't need a driver,
don't need gas, and are not wearing out a tank while testing the
bridge. And we're doing it in a way that gives us controllability
and repeatability," Cozby said. "So we can go back and repeat
the test on a modified bridge and be fairly certain it was tested in the
same way (as the original design).

"If we want to somehow play a bridge being exercised as part
of a battlefield simulation, I can now do that by hooking up the
bridge-crossing simulator to whatever larger simulation might be going
on at the time.

Because many "traditional" tests are expensive and
labor-intensive, technologies such as the bridge-crossing simulator will
pay for themselves quickly, said Byron Hawley, of DTC's
Tank-Automotive and Armaments Division. Hawley, one of the Army
technical experts behind the development of this system, said the
bridge-crossing simulator is just one component in the "leading
wave" of developmental test technologies that will save time and
money, and reduce risks to soldiers.

The bridge-crossing simulator is designed to input stresses and
strains based on load classes, Hawley said. It used data that are based
on international standards. Such technologies will give the Army
flexibility in conducting tests on future developmental items, he added.

In September 2000, the DTC's Aberdeen Test Center had a
groundbreaking ceremony for a roadway simulator projected to cost about
$37 million--for construction and installation. This system is expected
to be the world's largest flat-track simulator of this type when
completed. It will operate in a controlled laboratory setting and employ
computer programming to create varying driving conditions, such as
speed, grade, curves and bumps. It will enable testers to collect
comprehensive data on the performance and safety of vehicles ranging
from passenger cars to tractor-trailer rigs.

DTC's Redstone Technical Test Center, at Redstone Arsenal,
Ala., frequently has employed these virtual proving-ground technologies,
Cozby said, largely because of its access to a wealth of scientific
expertise at a major missile research center.

Cozby cites the Simulation/Test Acceptance Facility at Redstone as
an example of the virtual proving ground's role in supporting Army
weapons tests.

Missile Tests

Since its opening in July 1997, this DTC facility has used
specialized simulations to test hundreds of Longbow Hellfire missiles in
support of the Army's weapons upgrades to the Apache attack
helicopter.

Testers at the Simulation/Test Acceptance Facility examine lot
samples before the Army acquires the missiles. If the Army had instead
test-fired missiles to the extent that it did in the past--before
accepting production lots--it would have needed to destroy a larger
number of missiles as part of the test program and in the process
reduced its missile inventory.

The tests conducted at Redstone, which employed a variety of
simulations duplicating various scenarios and extreme environments,
revealed defects that led to corrections in design or manufacturing
processes.

The Redstone Technical Test Center also has used high-speed
communications technology to link with DTC's White Sands Missile
Range, enabling the two centers to conduct collaborative, nondestructive
testing on the Javelin missile. During one test, a soldier at White
Sands powered up a Javelin command launch unit linked to Redstone's
Electro-Optical Flight Evaluation Laboratory (EOSFEL) and pressed the
trigger to "virtually" fire a missile.

He saw the missile go down range via an EOSFEL simulation linked to
White Sands by the Defense Research and Engineering Network, a
high-speed wide area network connection. The soldier didn't notice
a lapse in response time after pressing the trigger, due to the speed of
communications between the two test centers.

Among the threats confronting the United States and its allies is
the use of unconventional weapons or terrorist attacks. As U.S. military
forces transform to meet new threats, there is a critical need to test
emerging technologies designed to provide protection from chemical and
biological threats. Dugway Proving Ground conducts a wide range of
chemical and biological tests to assist the Defense Department and other
agencies develop protective measures. A virtual proving-ground
initiative known as the Chemical/Biological Simulated Natural
Environment currently is under way at Dugway.

The thrust of this program is to develop a physics-based, realistic
digital representation of chemical and biological threats in traditional
and urban battlefield environments. Output from a simulated environment
is employed to support live and virtual tests of materials to be
acquired for chemical and biological protection.

Dugway also has the capability to use its virtual proving-ground
simulation capabilities to support training as well as testing.

One technology recently tested at Dugway with the aid of its
virtual capabilities is the Biological Aerosol Warning System (BAWS),
under development by the Army's Edgewood Chemical Biological
Center, in Maryland. The BAWS is an array of point biological aerosol
detectors networked to detect biological agent attacks while reducing
the likelihood of false alarms.

Dugway's West Desert Test Center used digital representations
of biological threat clouds, as well as chemical simulants that
represent a biological threat, and employed them during a four-week test
to evaluate the performance of soldiers and Marines operating a BAWS
"base station."

The West Desert Test Center is working to improve computer-based
modeling and simulation, as well as digitally-based testing, using these
virtual tools to enhance the testing of chemical/biological defense
systems.

Mike Cast is a public affairs specialist at the U.S. Army
Developmental Test Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.

COPYRIGHT 2001 National Defense Industrial Association
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